You can't pay him out of pocket. If you fire him SS will split his fee with your new attorney. A new attorney might be less likely to take you on due the reduced fee... If you can get him to quit, then he loses all rights to fees.

These fees are actually fairly low for attorneys. Many of them have huge case loads. It's actually the paralegals or assistants that do the majority of the work. Every applicant needs to verify that everything is submitted in a timely manner regardless of counsel. -just a reality.

You might consider looking into non attorney SSD reps as well. They seem to frequently be more on top of things since they do all the work, and give one on one attention... They frequently are former SS employees.